Post on 17-Oct-2020
Educational Games:
Transformational, or Befuddling?
Mike Christel christel@cmu.edu
Talk Outline
• Intro to ETC and “transformational”
• ETC educational game case studies
– Invasion!! with Chicago Field Museum
– Biomes in the classroom
– Walk-around “games for change”
• “Befuddling”: Dampening the hype
• Two more examples drawn from ETC work
• Wrap-up (with invite to a summit April 30)
ETC: Technology + Art
2-year graduate degree: MET
ETC: See Us April 30!
• tes.etc.cmu.edu
• For educators, developers, and subject matter experts
interested in how experiences can be designed and
developed to positively transform and improve society
http://tes.etc.cmu.edu/
Power of Stories
• ETC core courses: Building Virtual Worlds
(BVW), Visual Story,
Improvisation
• Games can “hook”
users with story;
increase interest in
educational content
Games with a Purpose
• “GWAP” – popularized by Louis von Ahn
at Carnegie Mellon
• ESP Game
• Licensed by
Google, Image Labeler
• Metadata generation as
by-product of play
• von Ahn & Dabbish
CACM 2008 paper, DOI
10.1145/1378704.1378719
GWAP: Benefitting Science
• Foldit, Univ. Washington Center
for Game Science, 2008
• Protein-folding game leveraging human
spatial reasoning
• Scientific publications with
Foldit players as co-authors,
e.g., 2011 article with DOI
10.1038/nsmb.2119
GWAP and the Player
• GWAP can generate metadata for
information repositories
• GWAP can generate new scientific data
• I will delve into another purpose for
games: changing the player rather than
capitalizing on “human computation”
• What can games do for the player?
Transformational Games
• Jesse Schell, fellow ETC faculty member
• The Art of Game Design
• “Games that change the player….”
– Educational
– Behavior
• Some examples follow…
Chicago USA: Invasive Species
ETC project: Invasion!! (at BrainPop games pages –
http://www.brainpop.com/games/invasion!!/ )
http://www.brainpop.com/games/invasion!!/http://www.brainpop.com/games/invasion!!/
More on Invasion!!
ETC Imagica: Biomes for Children
Imagica: 1 Semester, 6 Students
Producer, UX designer, 2D/3D artist,
animator, interaction & tech programmer
Iterative Playtesting with Imagica
• Tablet-driven experience for 8-11 year olds
• Marine biologist validates content
• Child-testing confirms appeal of experience
ETC YETI: Arctic Biome
Arctic Stars: The Far North
• Available as free app (Google play) as Arctic Stars: The
Far North by Xuyan Ke
• James Inglis, Eric Kron,
Shashank Kairamkonda,
Christian Karrs,
Xinghu Lu, Xuyan Ke
ETC Gaia: Rainforests Spring 2015
Bing Liu, Melody Lee,
Brentt Kasmiskie, Jake
Ahn, Jerry John, Tiffa
Cheng, Vivek Sangubhotia
ETC Project Ursa: World Hunger
• Created Feed, played at Games for Change
• Outdoor, many-player game
Research Behind Feed
“Befuddlers”
• Does learning happen? – Pittsburgh science of learning
– ETC collaborations with HCII
– Some online notes at http://workingexamples.org
• Can educators find the “good stuff” – Parent guides, teacher guides can help
– Great educator portals could help more
• Platform: Flash? PC/Mac? Apps?
• Game polish for educational vs. entertaining
• Other hurdles…. (will revisit in Q/A)….
http://workingexamples.org/
ETC Project: Electric 4 Education
• Produce intergenerational literacy game
for 6-9 year olds and their parents
• Fielded at Public
Broadcasting System
activities website:
www.pbs.org/parents/electriccompany/electric-racer.html
http://www.pbs.org/parents/electriccompany/electric-racer.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/parents/electriccompany/electric-racer.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/parents/electriccompany/electric-racer.html
More on Electric Racer
ETC Projects: ENGAGE
• DARPA ENGAGE program promoted
scientific literacy for children ages 4-12
• Many ETC projects involved, many games
produced: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/engage/
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/engage/http://www.etc.cmu.edu/engage/
Science Content in 3 Games
• Balance scale and sum of cross products
• Determine whether a scale will balance,
given a particular configuration of weights
on each side of the fulcrum
Siegler, R. S. (1976). Three aspects of cognitive development. Cognitive
Psychology, 8, 481-520
Objectives for Balance Games
Help learners progress through 4 increasingly sophisticated mental models identified by Siegler:
1. Learners only pay attention to weight, not distance.
2. Learners also consider distance, but only when the weight is equal on both sides.
3. Learners consider both weight and distance, but when the cues suggest different outcomes, they guess.
4. Learners consider both the amount of weight and distance of weights from the fulcrum; if the cues suggest different outcomes, they use the sum of cross products rule.
PuppyBot Rescue
• Developed in concert with Sesame Workshop
• Uses HTML5, optimized for touch
• Adapt game level progression (ages 5-11)
Promoting Systems Thinking
• GameGrid ETC team, Fall 2013
• Worked with Creativity Labs, Indiana Univ.
• Produced a game to give children practice
with and stimulate interest in systems
thinking: Water+
• Game uses Unity Web Player:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/gamegrid/
Water+ from ETC GameGrid
GameGrid Water Bears • GameGrid work extended by Schell Games
• Published as Water Bears (iPad; see
http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-
news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-
steam-based-games/ )
http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/business-tech-news/schell-games-brings-education-life-three-new-steam-based-games/
ETC: Many Projects,
Many Experiences
Thanks to:
• MacArthur Foundation
• Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
• DARPA ENGAGE program
• Dedicated ETC students delivering on
projects with transformational goals
• ETC and HCII faculty and staff
• Numerous educators who helped in
iterative design, testing, and refinement
Summary
• Games can be transformational teaching tools
• Games can inspire people to learn more: – Hello Ocean, Arctic Stars, …
– Ursa (Feed)
• Games can introduce topics (Invasion!!)
• Games can be a “head fake” (Water Bears)
• Further information – www.etc.cmu.edu for ETC and its projects
– www.workingexamples.org for digital media and learning developer insights (seed, sprout, bloom)
– Mike Christel, christel@cmu.edu
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/http://www.workingexamples.org/mailto:christel@cmu.edu
Other Resources
• BrainPop, www.brainpop.com
• GlassLab, glasslabgames.org
• PBS Kids, pbskids.org
• …connections are “Befuddling” –
educational game validation, educational
game distribution, connecting educators,
developers, distributors…
http://www.brainpop.com/http://glasslabgames.org/http://pbskids.org/
For more on “Transformational”
• Register at tes.etc.cmu.edu (getting close to full…)